Whether you’re dabbling with watercolor, a serious scrapbooker or a DIY diva, you’ll have to deal with color. Here is a hobbyist’s simple article on the different categories of color, which will help you learn how to combine them and manipulate proportion. So, when you’re looking at the colors in your paint palette, or the different kinds of scrapbook supplies, you’ll be inspired to combine colors in new and creative ways.
Primary colors are red, blue and yellow. They are the foundation of all colors and just by mixing them together you can get the secondary colors. Red and blue make violet, yellow and blue make green and red and yellow make orange. You get tertiary colors by mixing a primary color with a secondary color. The tertiary colors include blue violet, red violet, yellow green blue green, yellow orange and red orange.
But you can also manipulate the color even further. When you add black to a color you get a deeper shade. When you add white to a color, it gets a lighter tint. But when you mix a shade of gray to a color, you get something called tones. One thing you need to note is that the more colors are mixed, the less vivid they become.
You can use colors to create a sense of proportion. Projects are most pleasing when color ad space are not divided equally. Changes in proportion help the viewer focus on the most important elements. For example if you are working with a three color combination then the smallest part represents about 5% of the total, and works as an accent color. The reminder is then divided into one third (the supporting color) and the main color. Or, in visual terms, in terms of paint cans, the main color is a gallon, the supporting color is a quart and accent color is an ounce.
Another thing to consider when studying color is value, or the lightness of a color relative to a scale that ranges from black to white. Color value can help you create a sense of space, because lighter colors tend to come forward and dark colors recede. This can help you make a painting or a sketch look more realistic and three-dimensional.
The colors themselves tend to have different effects compared to the colors they are placed next to. This is called simultaneous contrast. When selecting colors for a painting or a craft project, place swatches of the colors next to each other to see how it will affect the warmth and coolness.
Photo from rewaj.com